energies, and the public spirit of Oxford and Cambridge to the actual conditions of town life. During the last few years many University men, following the footsteps of Denison and Arnold Toynbee, have, on leaving the University, energetically responded to the various calls for their aid. Such isolated efforts are capable of infinite expansion were the way once laid open, and it is now proposed to offer to those who are ready a channel of immediate and useful activity and a centre of right living. In a common life, united by a common devotion to the poor, those fellow-workers who are able to give either their whole time or the leisure they can spare from their occupations, will find, it is believed, a support in their own highest aims, as well as practical guidance, which isolated and inexperienced philanthropists lack.

The demand thus made was so enthusiastically responded to, that the material structure required was rapidly proceeded with, and Toynbee Hall, the realisation of purposes seemingly frustrated by death, was opened in January 1885. Though built without architectural pretensions, it stands out in one of the busiest thoroughfares in Whitechapel in strange contrast with the sordid bustle of its environment. The semi-collegiate air conferred by a courtyard which seems to aspire to be a quadrangle, is not belied by its internal arrangements. In addition to the usual dining-room and drawingroom, it contains a class-room, a common-room, five little halls for lectures and entertainments, with about thirty private rooms for the reception of residents to the number of seventeen. The latter, graduates or undergraduates of the Universities, bind themselves for a term of not less than three months, and pay at a moderate scale of charges according to the accommodation desired, all domestic arrangements being made by a house committee of the residents themselves. Temporary hospitality is also extended to visitors from the Universities who come to help or learn for a time, and for whose accommodation guest-rooms are reserved. Non-resident associates, who live elsewhere, but co-operate in the work, number about 100. The Rev. Samuel Barnett, who is regarded as the founder, gives general superintendence, and bears the title of Warden of Toynbee Hall.

The duties of the residents are multifarious, and are allotted according to individual capability. We may cite, as an example, the avocations of one gentleman, who, in addition to conducting a class of University Extension students in Popular Ethics, another of pupil-teachers in English Literature, a class of working-men in Political Economy, and a Sunday Bible-Class of members of the St. Jude's Juvenile Association, found time also to act as School Board manager, as a member of the Board of Guardians, and as secretary to one of the committees of the Charity Organisation. Society, as well as to a Ward Sanitary Aid Committee. His Political

Economy Class, again, developed into the nucleus of a body of working-men, who, as members of relief committees and other organisations, themselves took part in charitable administration.

Other residents, gifted with the lighter social talents, are assigned to the department of entertainments, by which concerts, lectures, readings, &c., are conducted in so popular a fashion as to attract audiences summing up to 4,000 in a month. The educational advantages proffered are availed of with no less eagerness. Thus, a body of local students have taken up their residence under academic discipline in Wadham College, an adjoining building provided by residents and their friends, taking part in the social working of the institution, and pursuing their studies in connection with the evening classes, while earning their bread in various ways during the day.

The programme of Toynbee Hall during a single week, taken at haphazard, as a specimen of its work, by Mr. Charles Booth in his volume on "Life and Labour in East London," occupies two of his pages, and reads like a complete educational syllabus. It comprises ten Lectures (four in connection with the University Extension Society), nine Reading Parties, the meetings of two Literary Societies, thirty-five Classes of various kinds, a Concert, a party to Boy Foresters, another to those attending Recreative Evening Classes, the annual meeting of the Pupil Teachers' Association, and the constant use of the library containing 4,000 volumes.

But lectures and classes, concerts, and parties (says the Report of the Universities' Settlement for 1889) suggest only the work that can be tabulated. There is a life in the background that cannot be thrown into plans or arranged in a time-table. It is partly because so much of the activity of the Settlement does not lend itself to organisation, and does not need it; because so much more, although organised, does not demonstrate its existence by printed forms; because so much is personal, silent, and persistent, that all reports must leave much unrecorded. Moreover, a chief part of the work of the Settlement is found in various forms of outside activity, such as School Management, work in connection with the Children's Country Holiday Fund, Charity Organisation, the promotion of co-operation, and last, not least, in the formation of friendships.

As a sample of its miscellaneous activities, we have the Toynbee Travellers' Club organising excursions to the Continent, largely availed of by teachers, working-men's trips to Oxford, &c., &c., and other committees arranging children's trips to the country or visits to the principal sights of London. The Toynbee Record, published monthly, is, as its name implies, a journal devoted to the doings of the institution, and chronicling the varied undertakings of this novel experiment in philanthropy. The General Committee of

the Universities' Settlement is representative of Oxford and Cambridge alike, while a third branch for London includes the names of some of the most distinguished residents in the metropolis.

Slightly different in its aims and functions is Oxford House, another University colony in Bethnal Green, described as “a centre for religious, social, and educational work amongst the poor of East London." Its staff consists of men who, after taking their degree, wish to face the problems of a great city, and its main form of action consists in starting and organising clubs for working-men. The advantage of having culture and refinement brought to bear on these institutions is too obvious to be insisted on. As an instance of its success in its vocation may be adduced the history of a club opened in a back-alley in August, 1885, with seven or eight members of the rougher class of working-men. Its rapid growth necessitated a move to larger premises, where, under the name of the "University Club," it began the year 1886 with fifty members, and ended it with thrice that number. Another move took place in January 1887, and a further increase in numbers during the year brought its tale of membership up to 400 before its close. A third change of quarters leaves it in occupation of palatial rooms, with accommodation for 1,000 members. A Labour Registry, and a Refuge for Homeless Poor, are also part of the benevolent machinery of Oxford House, while its spiritual activity takes the form of religious lectures, delivered in summer in the open air, and in winter under shelter, as an antidote to the propaganda of infidelity in the district.

The large Christchurch College Mission in Poplar, with the organisation of a small parish, may be taken as a sample of the more exclusively religious work undertaken by Oxford. The energies of the elder University are, however, mainly expended in those lay and secular institutions of which the Universities' Settlement is the parent and model.

On the same lines is organised the society of lady students and graduates, which, under the title of the "Women's University Association for Work in the Poorer Districts of London," has been established in Southwark for more than two years. Among the neglected children and the hard-worked women and girls of these overcrowded quarters, there is ample scope for female activity and benevolence. As at Toynbee Hall, there are both resident and nonresident helpers, and the number of members according to the last annual report exceeded 550. The work of the Association is multifarious, including evening classes for instruction and recreation, the organisation of holiday trips for children, the superintendence of the

London Pupil Teachers' Association, assistance in the management of Board Schools, and general co-operation with all existing charitable institutions. Active help, for instance, is given to the local branch of the "Metropolitan Association for Befriending Young Servants," and a lodging-house has been opened in which girls are accommodated while out of place, and training in household work is given to those who wish to qualify for domestic service. Familiar acquaintance with the wants and ways of the poor is here, as in the Universities' Settlement of the stronger sex, the foundation of the work done amongst them.

Cambridge, on the other hand, while not standing aloof from these organisations of lay beneficence, has more especially devoted itself to the work of supplementing and strengthening the parochial machinery on which the waxing population and waning respectability of South London in particular has thrown too great a strain. This segment of the great city, comparatively overlooked in the first attempts to reclaim its outcast population, is declared by many to be more in want of such efforts than the East End itself. An article in the Record of January 6, 1888, among other facts then first put before the public, made the startling statement that here "Christianity is not in possession."

The bane of this region, as of so many outlying districts of the metropolis, has been the gradual retirement of well-to-do respectability before the ever-advancing wave of low-class habitations. It is what is known as a "falling neighbourhood." Once an aristocratic quarter, the great mansions still standing in the purlieus of Battersea and Southwark attest its downward drop through the full gamut of social standing, since they are now utilised as common lodginghouses, in some of which as many as 400 of the lowest outcasts find what is by courtesy called a bed.

The vast extension southward of the metropolis is of comparatively recent date. The first great leap of the brick-and-mortar wave, obliterating the market-gardens of Battersea and Kennington, and submerging all the open ground from Rotherhithe to New Cross, took place between 1818 and 1824, while 1834 to 1867 was a second epoch of advance. The subsequent transforming process is described in the article in the Record, the writer of which compares it to the overthrow of a child's house on the sands by the flow of the incoming tide.

Every year (he goes on) the inner edge slips down, and is absorbed in the great flat land of poverty and monotony. Behind-two to three miles behind-the great wave of building to which we have so often referred, there comes, at much the same U_U

VOL. CCLXVIII. NO. 1914.

speed, this other wave of levelling, poverty-striking, slum-creating power. In some places its presence is obvious and patent to everybody. Thus, at New Cross, if you stand in the Old Kent Road, you are at the very edge of the wave. Both sides of the way are houses of the same class, built for professional and business men. But on the northern side they are "fallen" (in the social sense), and let out in flats. On the south they are still occupied by well-to-do tenants. But they are "falling" fast, and before long, perhaps before this article is otherwise stale, the wave will have passed over the spot where we are standing, the respectable residents will have vanished farther south, and both sides of the street will have "fallen."

The itinerant trades form a large item in the occupations of the people, and such nomads of civilisation as hawkers, costermongers, bird and dog fanciers, cats'-meat men, chair-menders, tinkers, and scavengers are interspersed with dock-labourers, barge and lightermen, bricklayers, gas-stokers, and coal-porters. The population of

the entire area is 800,000, of whom it is calculated that about 1 in II frequents a place of worship. The Church of England organisation consists of 96 parishes, with 120 churches and mission-chapels containing 101,512 seats; while the various forms of Dissent, with 122 meeting-houses, and the nine Roman Catholic churches, provide accommodation for somewhat more than half that number. Church attendance was registered on Sunday, October 24, 1886, as 74,228.

In this area Cambridge has, since 1884, established six College Missions, and the example of the University has been followed by two of the public schools-Charterhouse and Wellington. St. John's College Mission, founded in the above-named year, with the Rev. W. J. Phillips, a member of the College, as its missioner, claims precedence in right of seniority. A district in the parish of St. John's, Walworth, containing about 8,000 inhabitants, has been assigned to it. A church, of which the Bishop of Rochester laid the first stone on June 8, 1888, has been built, and a daily evening service attracts a congregation averaging 30. A Dispensary and Provident Club are among the charitable organisations of the mission, which disposes of an annual income of about £500, exclusive of the Building Fund.

In the ensuing year, 1885, the example of St. John's was followed by three other Colleges-Pembroke, Trinity, and Clare. This sphere of work was chosen, in preference to taking part in that of the Universities' Settlement, after a searching inquiry instituted by the first-named College into the relative merits of the rival systems. A Committee appointed by the undergraduates having spent the Easter vacation in visiting the Universities' Settlement of Toynbee Hall, the Eton, Harrow, and St. John's College Missions, as well as

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